KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — A letter purported to be from Lin Dan to Datuk Lee Chong Wei that has been making rounds on social media has been exposed as a fake in a report by Hype.my.
An English translation of the letter surfaced after national shuttler Lee defeated Lin in the 2016 Rio Olympics men’s singles badminton semi-finals on Friday.
The letter spoke of their friendship and rivalry, and Lin expressed gratitude to Lee for giving him the impetus to work harder in order to be the best.
“To my older brother Chong Wei,” the letter read, “When I saw you throw down your racquet yesterday, and leap into the air with a shout of victory, I was truly very happy for you.”
The letter went on to detail their early days in the field, and touched on their rivalry on the court, and went on to touch on their on- and off-court friendship.
“Besides all the wins and champions, there’s still a warm ‘Lin-Lee’ relationship linked with my name. We can be like Ronaldo and Messi, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, Federer and Nadal, eternal because of each other’s existence,” the letter said.
“Because of you, only there exists a better me. I’ve gotten almost all possible champions, yet still do not dare to put down the defence and slack. I could have sang it is lonely to be undefeated (rough translation of a song name), if not for you being there, the one forcing cold sweat from me, the one facing me every time we went to the finals with you opposite the net. You went all out to chase up to me, it’s not like I could let you just surpass me like that. You trained, I trained. You wouldn’t accept losing, I didn’t dare slack.”
“The 37th time I meet you opposite the net, it’s already gone a whole round since our first. Truthfully, when I slipped and lost to you, I had no regrets. You are my greatest rival, I am willing to lose to you, without regrets. When I hugged you, I really felt as if the past ten years with you, had been but a dream. I will take your jersey to my future child and tell him: ‘There is an uncle known as Lee Chong Wei, your dad’s greatest rival, and also best friend.’
The letter ended with Lin wishing Lee luck in the finals against Chen Long.
There was also a ‘reply’ from Lee to Lin that started making rounds on social media.
Screenshots of the English translation of the letter, which has been shared almost 15,000 times on Facebook, were initially attributed to a Twitter post that has since been deleted, and the owner of the Twitter account commented on the Facebook that it was fiction.
,Hype.my dug deeper and uncovered the original source of the letter, which turned out to be an article on dailynews.sina.com. One of the paragraphs translates to “If they were to write a letter to each other, what would they say?”, followed by examples of letters that they would write to each other, clearly showing that it was make believe.
The Facebook post has since been amended to add a note clarifying that the letter was fanfiction.
While Lin’s letter does give you the fuzzies, sadly, it isn’t real.
- Sumber : Malaymaildaily.
